Summary: We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint about the Council’s investigation of and decision on her noise complaint, and the attitudes and responses of officers. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision-making process and decision on the noise issue to warrant an investigation. We could not achieve a different outcome in the complaint about the Council’s staff.

The complaint

1. Miss X lives near a shop with a mechanical door which causes a whirring noise. She complains the Council:
1. did not do a proper investigation of the noise caused by the door;
2. sent officers who were rude and belittling to her.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

2. We investigate complaints of injustice caused by ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. I have used the word fault to refer to these. We consider whether there was fault in the way an organisation made its decision. If there was no fault in how the organisation made its decision, we cannot question the outcome. (Local Government Act 1974, section 34(3), as amended)
3. We provide a free service but must use public money carefully. We do not start or continue an investigation if we decide:

• there is not enough evidence of fault to justify investigating; or
• further investigation would not lead to a different outcome.

(Local Government Act 1974, section 24A(6), as amended, section 34(B))

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How I considered this complaint

4. I considered information from Miss X and the Ombudsman’s Assessment Code.

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My assessment

5. We are not an appeal body. This means we do not take a second look at a decision to decide if it was wrong. Instead, we look at the processes an organisation has followed to make its decision. If we consider it followed those processes correctly, we cannot question whether the decision was right or wrong, even if someone disagrees with it.
6. Officers received and considered information from Miss X about the times, frequency and type of noise from the door. The Council installed noise monitoring equipment in Miss X’s property, which captured 85 events before its memory was full. The Council says officers listened to the recordings as part of their assessment. When Miss X reported that the noise monitoring machine had stopped recording the Council sent two officers to visit her. One stayed in her property to witness the noise while the other used the shop’s door. Officers recognised the noise was audible and could cause Miss X annoyance, but they considered the noise witnessed did not amount to a statutory nuisance allowing them to take enforcement action.
7. In making their decision not to enforce, the Council’s officers collected relevant information and followed their investigative process. Officers witnessing a noise is the most effective method for a council to use when investigating such matters. They were entitled to make their decision not to take further action, and to decide how they investigated the noise. There is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision-making process here to warrant us investigating. We recognise Miss X disagrees with the officers’ decision. But it is not fault for a council to properly make a decision with which someone disagrees.
8. Miss X also complains officers were rude to her and belittled her. The Council’s complaint response as provided by Miss X is not rude or belittling in tone nor content. We recognise the Council’s decision is not the one Miss X wanted. When a disappointing decision is given, this may cause offence or frustration. But it is not fault for a council to set out its decision and its reasons, as the Council did in its complaint response.
9. Miss X says an officer who visited mentioned ways she could deal with noises in her home, which she found rude or insulting. The Council says the officer was suggesting an option which might help Miss X and apologised to her for any offence it caused her. We could not determine whether the tone or content of the officer’s conversation with Miss X, to which we were not witness, amounted to Council fault. No further information about it would be available to an investigation. There is no different outcome an investigation by us of this issue could achieve, so we will not investigate it.

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Final decision

10. We will not investigate Miss X’s complaint because:
• there is not enough evidence of fault in the Council’s decision-making process, nor its decision regarding the noise, to warrant an investigation; and
• we could not achieve a different outcome in the complaint about the attitudes or responses of Council staff.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman